People attend a tribute to Las Vegas Police Officer Charleston Hartfield, who was killed in the mass shooting Sunday.

(Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images)

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Contractor Robert Walker says a prayer after placing flowers and American flag at the scene of a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting on Las Vegas Boulevard near the crime scene.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Shooting victim Paola Bautista, 39, right, of Fontana with her sister Daisy, 34, recounts her experience of running and hiding once they heard gunshots while attending the country music festival. Bautista was shot in the forearm and will require additional surgeries. She and her sister hid in a maintenance trailer for more than 3 hours.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Kaili Berdge of Scottsdale, Ariz. makes sure every candle stays lit at a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting near the crime scene .

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times )

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People stop to pay their respects at a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting on the median off Las Vegas Boulevard near the crime scene.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Police tape lines the doors of the gunman’s suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

(Bild exclusive / Polaris )

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Connie Lane of Las Vegas holds an American flag with daughter Celestial Olave during a prayer vigil at Mountain Crest Park in Las Vegas.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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People visit a makeshift memorial for shooting victims on Reno Ave and Las Vegas Blvd.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Destiny Albers weeps at a makeshift memorial on Las Vegas Blvd. Albers attended the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert during the attack on Sunday night and one of her friends was struck down by gunfire.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Workers clean up parts of Las Vegas Blvd outside the crime scene.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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A prayer vigil in Las Vegas for the victims of the mass shooting.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Matthew Edwards lights candles at a makeshift memorial at Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard in Las Vegas for the victims of the mass shooting.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Firefighters and paramedics bow their heads in prayer during a vigil for the victims of the mass shooting at Mountain Crest Park in Las Vegas.

In the presence of her family, Carmen Alegria recounts her harrowing experience escaping the mass shooting that killed 59 and injured more than 520 at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Matthew Edwards gets a hug from a passerby as he lights candles at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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People gathered for a candlelight vigil at Town Square in Las Vegas to remember those killed and injured in the mass shooting.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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University of Nevada, Las Vegas, students observe a moment of silence for the victims of the mass shooting.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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University of Nevada, Las Vegas, students attend a candlelight vigil for the shooting victims.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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A candlelight vigil at Town Square in Las Vegas to remember the shooting victims.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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UNLV students pick up candles for a vigil for the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev.) hugs clergy members as they lead the Guardian Angel Cathedral congregation for a prayer event to honor the victims of the mass shooting.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Members of the Guardian Angel Cathedral congregation embrace after a prayer event to honor the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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People attend a candlelight vigil at Las Vegas City Hall for the victims of the mass shooting.

(Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images)

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Sean Bolger is comforted by a friend during a vigil at Las Vegas City Hall for victims of the mass shooting.

(Gregory Bull / Assocaited Press)

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Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo updates the toll from the mass shooting to 59 killed and 527 injured during a news conference Las Vegas.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Susan Stafford, left, of Media Fellowship International consoles a resident in prayer after the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Relatives of victims from the mass shooting embrace outside a family assistance center in Las Vegas.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Flowers are left behind for victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Tourists visit the crime scene, cordoned off by officials as the investigation of the mass shooting continues in Las Vegas.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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People run from the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after hearing gunfire Sunday night in Las Vegas. The shooter was firing from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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Las Vegas police work on a street outside the grounds of the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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Drapes billow from broken windows Monday at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Police say gunman Stephen Paddock targeted festival-goers from the resort and was found dead inside a hotel room.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

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President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, participate in a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House for victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting.

(Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images)

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President Donald Trump makes a statement about the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

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Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo gives a news update early Monday on the mass shooting at a country music festival. Authorities say at least 58 people are dead and more than 500 injured.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Mass shooting in Las Vegas
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A man lays on top of a woman as others flee the Route 91 Harvest country music festival grounds after a active shooter was reported on Sunday in Las Vegas.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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People lie on the ground at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after a gunman targeted the event from a nearby upper-story hotel room.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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A wounded person is transported on a wheelbarrow as authorties respond during a mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday.

(Chase Stevens / Associated Press)

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People take cover at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after hearing gunfire Sunday night in Las Vegas. The shooter was firing from the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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People run and take cover at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after hearing gunfire.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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People tend to the wounded outside the festival grounds after the mass shooting late Sunday.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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A man in a wheelchair is taken away from the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after gunfire was heard.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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People run for cover at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after a shooter targeted the event from Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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People carry a person at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after gunfire was heard in Las Vegas.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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People run from the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after the event was targeted by a gunman shooting from a nearby hotel.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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People tend to the wounded outside the festival grounds after a shooting near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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People hug and seek cover at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival as the shooting scene unfolds in Las Vegas.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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A cowboy hat lays in the street late Sunday after gunfire hits a country music festival in Las Vegas.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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A woman sits on a curb at the scene of the shooting outside of the Route 91 Harvest country music festival along the Las Vegas Strip.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

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A man takes cover at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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Police officers advise people to take cover near the scene of the mass shooting near Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

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Medics treat people injured in a mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday.

(Chase Stevens / Associated Press)

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People assist a wounded woman at the Tropicana during an active shooter situation on the Las Vegas Strip late Sunday.

(Chase Stevens / Las Vegas Journal)

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People take cover from the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after hearing gunfire Sunday night in Las Vegas. The shooter was firing from the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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Police run to cover at the scene of a shooting near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

(John Locher / AP)

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A police officer takes cover behind a police vehicle during a shooting near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

(John Locher / AP)

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A gropu carries a person at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after a mass shooting by a gunman from a nearby hotel.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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A police officer runs along a sidewalk on the Las Vegas Strip late Sunday.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

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Las Vegas police sweep through a convention center area at the Tropicana Las Vegas, during a lockdown following an active shooter situation on the Las Vegas Strip.

(Chase Stevens / Associated Press)

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People run from the country music festival, which was targeted by a gunman.

(David Becker / Getty Images)

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Crime scene investigators stand by a body along Las Vegas’ Reno Avenue on Monday morning, in the aftermath of the mass shooting that left at least 58 dead and more than 500 injured.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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A body lays covered in the driveway of the Desert Rose Resort on Reno Avenue on Monday morning after the mass shooting the night before.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Personal items covered in blood sit are discarded on Koval Lane.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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A curtain blows out of a broken window at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, from where a gunman targeted a a country music festival across the street on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday night.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Law enforcement officers cordon off a crime scene on Reno Avenue on Monday after a gunman opened fire from an upper story of the Mandalay Bay hotel on a nearby country music festival the night before.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

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Law enforcement officers in Las Vegas on Monday cordon off a crime scene after a gunman opened fire from an upper story hotel room on a country music festival the night before.

Californians who were injured in the Las Vegas attack may be able to get some monetary relief.

The California Victim Compensation Board, a state program that offers monetary support for victims of violent crimes, has released a single application process to allow people to apply for compensation from California as well as from Nevada’s program, said Julie Nauman, the board’s executive director.

A gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night, injuring almost 500 people and killing 58.

“Help is available for survivors of those who were killed, anyone who was injured and those in attendance at the concert, as well as their immediate family members,” according to a statement the board released Wednesday. The funds can help pay for various costs, including “funeral expenses, medical bills, mental health treatment, lost wages.”

There’s a limit of $70,000 per victim in the California program, but officials from California and Nevada are working together to maximize resources for families, Nauman said.

Police said Thursday they are examining reports that the gunman who fired on a country music festival in Las Vegas also booked rooms in a Chicago hotel overlooking the massive Lollapalooza music festival, the latest new line of inquiry as investigators try to retrace the killer’s steps in the days and weeks before the attack.

TMZ reported that Stephen Paddock, 64, booked two rooms facing Grant Park, where the festival was held from Aug. 3 to Aug. 6, at the Blackstone Hotel, an upscale downtown hotel across the street, but he never showed.

“We can confirm that a reservation was made under the name Stephen Paddock, however authorities have not confirmed that this is the same person as the Las Vegas shooter,” said hotel spokeswoman Emmy Carragher, adding that the guest never arrived. “We are cooperating with the authorities on this matter.”

Lollapalooza draws hundreds of thousands of music fans every year, and this summer the shows attendees included Malia Obama, the daughter of former President Obama.

At the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, the video poker machines stand at the north end of the casino, near an open court across from the black jack tables.

Stephen Paddock, the gunman responsible for Sunday’s mass shootings at a music festival opposite the hotel, liked to play this bank of machines.

Hotel staff said he’d come to the Mandalay Bay up to twice a month.

A real estate investor who also made regular money on gambling, Paddock is said to have preferred video poker. “He gambled for 20-plus years, successfully,” his brother, Eric Paddock, told reporters on Wednesday.

He’d often play $100,000 at a time, he said.

"$100,000 isn’t that much money.... He gambled that much through a machine in hours.... He’s got the highest level of membership card at a lot of these [casino] hotels. If a lot of these hotels say they don’t know Steve, they’re lying.”

It was from a room 32 floors above the Mandalay Bay casino that Paddock launched his deadly attack, killing 58 people and wounding nearly 500 others.

On the casino floor Wednesday night, though, there was little sign of the tragedy three nights earlier.

It was business as usual.

Oct. 4, 2017, 8:34 p.m.

Why did it take police so long to breach Las Vegas gunman’s room? Here’s a new timeline

Los Angeles Times Staff

How long did it take Las Vegas police officers to storm into the room at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino where gunman Stephen Paddock was laying down fire on a crowd of 22,000 helpless concertgoers below?

Initial reports suggested it was 72 minutes. Actually, it was 75 minutes, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Wednesday, as authorities released their first complete timeline of the Sunday night shooting that left 58 people dead and nearly 500 injured.

There was a reason for the delay, Lombardo said. Officers actually reached Paddock’s hotel room door on the 32nd floor within 12 minutes of the first shots being fired, “which is phenomenal,” the sheriff said.

The shots had stopped 10 minutes after they started, according to the new timeline, which factors in information recorded on police officers’ body cameras and closed-circuit television footage from the concert venue.

The shooting apparently halted when Paddock detected the security guard’s approach at his hotel room door and turned to shoot the guard, Lombardo said.

The first police officers arrived about two minutes after that, the new account suggests. When they saw what had happened, they evacuated nearby rooms and waited for backup from a SWAT team to enter the room. That ended up happening 75 minutes after the first shots were fired.

Paddock was already dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Here is the timeline the sheriff’s department released:

10:05 p.m.: First shots fired by the suspect. This was seen on closed-circuit television from the concert venue.

10:12 p.m.: First two officers arrive on the 31st floor and announce the gunfire is coming from directly above them.

10:15 p.m.: The last shots are fired from the suspect per body-worn cameras.

10:26-10:30 p.m.: Eight additional officers arrive on the 32nd floor and begin to move systematically down the hallway, clearing every room and looking for any injured people. They move this way because they no longer hear the gunfire of an active shooter.

10:55 p.m.: Eight officers arrive in the stairwell at the opposite end of the hallway nearest to the suspect’s room.

11:20 p.m.: The first breach is set off and officers enter the room. They observe the suspect down on the ground and also see a second door that could not be accessed from their position.

11:27 p.m.: The second breach is set off, allowing officers to access the second room. Officers quickly realize there is no one else in the rooms and announce over the radio that the suspect is down.

And then — in a rambling, televised interview that stretched for half a hour in Florida on Wednesday — Paddock held court on his brother Stephen, the gunman who attacked a Las Vegas country music festival.

He was now one of America’s foremost experts on one of its worst mass killers, and he was trying to explain reports that Stephen Paddock had gambled heavily in Las Vegas in recent months, sometimes with at least $100,000.

“We’re wealthy people,” Eric Paddock said. "$100,000 isn’t that much money.... He gambled that much through a machine in hours.... He’s got the highest level of membership card at a lot of these [casino] hotels. If a lot of these hotels say they don’t know Steve, they’re lying.”

But his brother also “didn’t love the casino,” Paddock said. “The casino was a means to an end. The casino to him was like a job in Toyota in Japan, where you live in the Toyota apartments across the street, and then you go to the Toyota factory to work. That’s what the casino was. It’s a place where you lived and they were nice to you, and you could get it paid for by playing slots.”

Paddock remembered his brother as a man who used his money to take care of his family financially. “He helped make me and my family wealthy. I mean, he’s the reason I was able to retire three years ago when I got really burned out doing the job I did,” Eric Paddock said.

“He didn’t have a lot of friends,” Paddock continued. "He was a private person. There’s a story about that he’s, ‘ohhhh, he kept his shades closed, and he didn’t talk to me for the first three times he saw me walking in the neighborhood.’ Wow. That makes him really weird, doesn’t it? He was a private guy. That’s why you can’t find out anything about him, that’s why there’s no pictures. Is he such a weirdo because he didn’t have a Facebook page and posted 50,000 damn pictures of himself every day? Who’s weird?”

He said that his heart went out to the victims and that he began crying when his son had called him that day, also crying. “I woke up this morning, crying,” Paddock said.

But, of his brother’s attack, Paddock said: “This is 100% Steve, did this by himself. People can’t seem to cope with that either. But Steve is a — was a — highly intelligent, highly successful person. He could have done anything he wanted to do. And he did. He made himself wealthy. He made us wealthy. He was a very successful person. He gambled for 20-plus years, successfully. It’s like a job to him. He did it mathematically.”

Stephen Paddock loved his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, who flew to the Philippines before the attack, Eric Paddock said. He also wired Danley money. “That’s the Steve I know,” Eric Paddock said. "That’s something that makes sense. Steve would have wanted to take care of Marilou.”

The couple seem to have met at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, where Danely was a hostess and Stephen Paddock was a “big fish,” Eric Paddock said.

“They were adorable,” he said. “Steve’s this big, she’s this tiny thing. He loved her. He doted on her.”

He added of his brother: “It was fun to hang out with Steve, because he was a rich guy who hung out in the hotels. OK? ... Him getting on a plane and flying somewhere is like you going to Publix. It’s something he does every week.”

The attack was so baffling that “I hope to hell they find, when they do the autopsy, that there’s a tumor in his head, or something, because if they don’t, we’re all in trouble,” Eric Paddock said, adding, “I’m praying for at least some data points. Because otherwise, the bug in ‘Men In Black’ put on a Steve suit and went and did this. There’s no other rationalization.”

Oct. 4, 2017, 6:15 p.m.

Las Vegas gunman may have wanted to survive and escape, sheriff says

The gunman who opened fire on a country music festival in Las Vegas may have wanted to survive and escape his attack, but a hotel security guard who approached his door and attracted the shooter’s gunfire appears to have stopped the massacre, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Wednesday.

“His bravery was amazing,” Lombardo said of the Mandalay Bay hotel security guard, who continued to help police clear guests from the 32nd floor of the hotel even after being shot in the leg by the gunman through the door of the gunman’s suite.

Investigators also confirmed that Stephen Paddock, 64, of Mesquite had also rented a room at the Ogden condo building earlier in September overlooking an even larger Vegas music event, the Life is Beautiful festival, featuring Gorillaz, Lorde, Chance the Rapper and other artists.

Lombardo declined to say what evidence had led him to believe that Paddock might have hoped to escape after the attack, though he confirmed no suicide note was discovered in the room.

Investigators were still trying to understand what drove Paddock and whether something triggered him in October 2016, when he began buying dozens of guns.

Officials also declined to release details of their interviews with the gunman’s girlfriend, but Lombardo said he questioned whether Paddock had managed to amass an arsenal and prepare for an attack on his own.

“He had to have some help at some point,” Lombardo said. “Maybe he’s a superguy.… maybe he’s a super yahoo, was working out all this on his own, but it would be hard for me to believe that."

Oct. 4, 2017, 4:17 p.m.

Shooter’s girlfriend: No ‘warning that something horrible like this would happen’

In the midst of mass tragedy, a new normal for collective mourning has emerged.

It’s not uncommon for family, friends and strangers to grieve together on Facebook, on Twitter and even in the comments of online fundraising campaigns. That’s been true after many recent tragedies and certainly the case in the days since the Las Vegas shooting left 59 dead and more than 500 wounded. Dozens of campaigns on the Go Fund Me website have raised millions for victims and their families, while serving as virtual memorials and tributes.

Trump thanks doctors and police who aided Las Vegas shooting victims

President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited doctors and patients Wednesday at a Las Vegas hospital that treated more than 100 victims from this week’s mass shooting. “It makes you very proud to be an American when you see the job they’ve done,” the president said.

Flanked by medical staff from University Medical Center, the region’s only Level 1 trauma facility, Trump applauded the emergency response to the massacre. “I just want to congratulate everybody, it’s incredible work, incredible work you’ve done,” he said.

Victims who might have died will instead be released from the hospital in the days or weeks ahead, Trump said.

Trump characterized the gunman, Stephen Paddock, 64, as a “very sick man, he was a very demented person.” Of Paddock’s motive, Trump said, "You will know very soon if we find something, we’re looking very, very hard.”

Trump also praised the “incredible job” done by police responding to Sunday night’s shooting at a country-music festival, crediting officers with stopping the gunfire from the Mandalay Bay hotel within 11 minutes. “The professionalism has just been amazing,” Trump said.

Shortly after, the president and the first lady arrived at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, where they were greeted by law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting, and where Trump again praised their response.

The couple was scheduled to return to Washington after meeting with police.

Trump said the first responders to the shooting had been a “real inspiration,” adding “this has been a rough time,” but the shooting could have been “a lot worse” without the help of emergency officials. Trump said he had “seen professionalism like you rarely see” and thanked them, drawing applause.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Wednesday proposed legislation that would ban gun bump stocks, which police said were used by a Las Vegas shooter this week to make semi-automatic weapons work more like automatic weapons.

“The only reason to modify a gun is to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible,” the Califormnia Democrat told reporters.

After the shooting , many Republicans said it wasn’t the right time to talk about gun laws.

But several prominent Republicans appear open to the idea of banning the modifiers. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told Bloomberg News on Wednesday that Congress should hold hearings on whether to ban bump stocks, and North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows of the powerful House Freedom Caucus told reporters that if the modification goes around limits on automatic weapons, it’s “something that we obviously need to look at in the future.”

Watch live: President Trump delivers remarks in Las Vegas

Oct. 4, 2017, 12:10 p.m.

Concertgoer commandeered truck to take Vegas victims to hospital

Lyndsay Winkley

People take cover from the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after hearing gunfire Sunday night in Las Vegas. The shooter was firing from the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. (Getty Images)

As people fell to the ground, wounded in the sprays of gunfire, Taylor Winston knew he had to do something.

The 29-year-old San Diego man said he realized he needed to help fellow concertgoers get to the hospital.

Along with a friend, Winston ran to a parking lot adjacent to the fairgrounds where the Route 91 Harvest festival was staged, looking for a car or truck he could commandeer. He said he knew that festival employees often left keys in work vehicles.

“The first one we opened had keys inside,” Winston said.

Over the next 40 minutes, Winston and a friend, Jenn Lewis, would transport 20 to 30 critically injured people to a hospital in the commandeered truck.

“It was a lot of chaos, but within the chaos, there was a lot of good being done and a lot of people rising to the occasion and helping others,” he said.

A roundup of the latest on the Las Vegas shooting: Most of gunman’s weapons were purchased since October

The gunman responsible for the massacre in Las Vegas first began buying guns two decades ago, a federal source said Wednesday, but the majority of the 47 guns he owned had been purchased since October 2016.

Stephen Paddock brought at least 23 weapons, mostly rifles, to the Mandalay Bay hotel room from which he opened fire on a country music concert across the street Sunday night, an attack which left 59 people dead and more than 500 injured.

Twelve of the guns were modified with “bump-fire” stocks, which are legal accessories that allow guns to fire at nearly fully automatic speed, officials said.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s scanner traffic, and body camera video released Tuesday, captured officers’ frantic efforts to find and stop the gunman firing into a crowd of 22,000 people from a perch high above the fairgrounds at a music festival.

From the first reports of gunshots at 10:08 p.m. Sunday, it would be 72 chaotic minutes until a SWAT team crept down a carpeted hallway on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and blew open the hotel room occupied by gunman Stephen Paddock.

President Trump lands in Las Vegas to meet with victims of the attack at music festival

President Trump arrived in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning to meet with law enforcement officials and victims of Sunday night’s massacre at a country-music festival on the Strip.

Air Force 1 landed at McCarran International Airport at 9:37 a.m., and Trump walked out of the plane with Melania, the first lady.

They were greeted on the tarmac by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo and other dignitaries, which were scheduled to include Republican Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, an independent.

The president and first lady were scheduled to meet with patients and medical staff at a local hospital at 10 a.m. and then meet with civilian heroes and first responders to the attack at 11:50 a.m., before an expected departure back to Washington at 1:10 p.m.

Oct. 4, 2017, 9:01 a.m. Las Vegas

President Trump visiting Las Vegas to meet with mass shooting victims and first responders

President Trump’s visit to Las Vegas on Wednesday is his second trip in two days aimed at comforting the victims of tragedy: In Puerto Rico on Tuesday, it was victims of Hurricane Maria; in Nevada, it’s the families and survivors of a mass shooting opposite the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

Trump was scheduled to arrive at 9:30 a.m. PDT and meet with patients and doctors at a hospital treating the more than 500 people injured in Sunday’s shooting.

Later, the White House said, he was to meet with “civilian heroes” and first responders who were at the scene when Stephen Paddock , a 64-year-old gambler and real estate investor, opened fire from the 32nd floor of the hotel at a country music festival going on below.

“Well, It’s a very sad thing,” Trump told reporters Wednesday as he was preparing to leave Washington. "We’re going to pay our respects and to see the police who have done really a fantastic job in a very short time.”

As for the investigation into the shooting, he said: “Yeah, they’re learning a lot more. And that’ll be announced at the appropriate time. It’s a very, very sad day for me, personally."

In Las Vegas, some seemed skeptical that the president’s visit would bring much comfort.

Mekhaly Rassavong, 50, was at McCarran International Airport, where Trump was to land, to light a candle at a memorial for victims of the shooting.

Standing by her silver truck, she said she was worried about Trump’s visit.

Puerto Rico “lost 16 people and he’s saying their losses aren’t as bad as Katrina and that they’re messing with the budget,” she said, shaking her head. “If he’s not genuinely going to show compassion here, it’s almost like you shouldn’t be here because it’s just going to make people more upset.”

Mark Rumpeler, 58, who is a reverend and impersonates Elvis, disagrees.

“He’s going to salute the first responders and Americans who helped as he should,” he said.

Rumpeler said he’s happy that the president is visiting the city because it takes someone of his caliber to address what has happened.

“He represents all Americans, whether you voted for him or not,” he said. “I think he will strengthen America and remind us to keep rowing our boat in one direction.”

The trigonometry of terror: Why the Las Vegas shooting was so deadly

The retired Army lieutenant colonel and West Point graduate, who has a mechanical engineering degree and specialized in ballistics, has testified in many multiple-shooting cases.

What he sees so far about Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock is a patient, well-trained gunner who did not pick and choose his targets, but held to a steady kill zone centered in the middle of thousands of concertgoers.

Once the trigger was pulled, simple laws of physics and trigonometry sealed the fate of more than 500 people who would fall wounded in the ensuing fracas — 59 of them fatally.

“He had a huge area of three, four or five football fields with people standing shoulder to shoulder,” Alphin said. “He was not aiming at any individual person. He was just throwing bullets in a huge ‘beaten zone.’”

Beaten zone is an infantry term dating to World War I. Shaped like the area a searchlight casts across a flat surface, it represents the area where bullets can strike, and moves substantially with tiny changes in the tilt of the gun.

If the shooter shifted by about 1 degree, or the width of two fingers held at arm’s length, Alphin said, the beaten zone would fall outside the crowd.

“That’s all the distance you have to move and you aren’t hitting anybody,” Alphin said. “So he had to be pointing or aiming at the very center of mass and then bouncing all over with the recoil.”

From a perch 320 feet above ground in a hotel whose base was about 1,050 feet from the concert venue, Paddock was firing down the 1,098-foot hypotenuse of a right triangle — and would have to adjust his aim for the arc of the bullet over that distance.

Alphin said there was “no way” the shooter maintained such a steady kill zone by dumb luck. Steady nerves and planning are a better explanation for the casualty rate, he said.

“How did this guy get trained that well? Where did it come from?”

At least one of the 23 rapid-firing weapons authorities found in the hotel room had a bipod stand to hold it steady, according to law enforcement authorities.

Paddock also may have fitted weapons with a device to make it cycle rounds more quickly into the chamber for firing, or converted some to fully automatic firing, potentially adding as many as eight rounds per second, Alphin said.

There may also be expertise at work in deciding when to switch rifles, Alphin said. Gun barrels expand as they heat up, and the bullet can lose contact with the grooves that spin it and keep it point-forward. Without the spin, it will tumble.

“A bullet tumbling like that, good God, it will land on planet Earth but you don’t know where,” Alphin said.

Oct. 3, 2017, 9:32 p.m.

Girlfriend of Las Vegas gunman, a ‘person of interest’ in mass shooting, has landed in Los Angeles

Marilou Danley, the girlfriend of the gunman who shot and killed 59 people at a country music concert in Las Vegas, returned Tuesday night to the United States from the Philippines, according to multiple law enforcement sources.

Danley was met by federal agents at Los Angeles International Airport, said the officials, who were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Danley was not placed under arrest and it was not known when, or if, she would agree to be interviewed about Stephen Paddock, who killed himself in the Las Vegas hotel room from which he launched his deadly attack.

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, whose department is leading the investigation into the shooting, on Tuesday called Danley a “person of interest” and said authorities hoped that talking with her would shed light on why Paddock carried out the rampage.